Senior financiers anticipate ‘hard’ Brexit

September 26, 2016 10:23 am

Senior figures in the City of London have expressed concern at growing political momentum for a ‘hard’ Brexit, which they claim would erode business confidence, damage the City and result in businesses relocating from the UK.

Experts including John MacFarlane (Chairman of Barclays and TheCityUK) have highlighted recent comments by Brexit Minister David Davis – who suggested it was “improbable” the UK would remain in the single market – and suggested policy is being formed by pro-Leave figures including Mr Davis and International Trade Secretary Liam Fox. The senior financiers have claimed a ‘hard’ Brexit could result in the Prime Minister taking the UK out of the single market and currency union.

Other City figures have claimed civil servants are afraid to speak up regarding possible risks attached to leaving the single market.

Despite the warnings, economic forecasts compiled by the Treasury have suggested the decision to leave the EU will not affect the UK’s growth this year, reversing pre-referendum predictions. Experts remain convinced the economy will slow next year, but are also revising their predictions upwards. A survey of 100 chief executives of companies with revenues between £100 million and £1 billion, conducted by KPMG, has also found that 69 percent of respondents remained confident of the prospects of future growth in the UK over the next three years.

However, a new survey conducted by the CBI has suggested financial service firms are becoming increasingly nervous in the wake of the Brexit vote.

EU Address

The Whitehouse Consultancy was established by Chris Whitehouse in 1998 as a specialist public affairs agency, with our first clients including the British Olympic Association. Since then we have expanded and we now specialise in delivering integrated communications and events services for our clients across the fields of public affairs and political communications, EU political and policy engagement, public relations campaigns, media relations, political due diligence and political risk analysis, and events management.